Heim (Home)

Finally made it home! After 117 days abroad and 12 hours of travelling in one day I finally made it back home. Now its been 4 days now that I've been home and it feels so good to be back. Now Germany will always have a huge part of me because it taught me so much and now when I see it on the map I won't be able to not smile just thinking of all the things it showed me and gave to me and taught me. I look back now to my sophomore year of high school when I first took German as a foreign language class. It was hard, and I just could never seem to grasp it and excel in it. I got by and was able to get into the upper classes but always struggled. And along with that, I never, ever, not one bit did I look at the map of Germany and think maybe one day I'll make it there. I didn't even think i'd use the German that I learned in my future. And of course looking back I smile thinking how far I've come. Now of course people ask how my trip was and of course the only answers I can give are short and sweet ones because of the immensity of the true answer of explaining it all. But it's not a problem to sum it up by saying it was "good" or "the trip of a lifetime"  because these things are still true. And coming back it was so weird at first, because I felt so distant, but it was the surprise welcome home party that my mom, the one and only Kathryn Fagan and my lovely girlfriend, Jenny Kenyon set up for me that it all snapped back. It was so great to have a small group of friends come together to welcome me back home and just fire up the grill and have an amazing night together sharing moments and memories. I couldn't of asked for a better place to come back to and even more for better people to come back to. I do think of Germany often of course, but I don't think I let the idea manifest itself to deep because of the fact it was temporary. I do miss it terribly and hope to be able to return to Germany again and maybe even Marburg, but I knew that there is still this life that needs to be returned to and I was content with that. I am happy to have shared so much with people all around the world that I hadn't even heard of until 4 months ago, and all of them will also have a special place in my heart. All in all it was "the trip of a lifetime", it was a milestone in my life that will affect all the things in the future that I pursue and aim to achieve. While I was over there I decided to switch my existing German minor to a German major and hope that in the future I'll be returning to Germany, maybe not for studying abroad, but instead for business and connecting with the German people. I thank you all for baring with me and my numerous amounts of delayed blog posts and my incredibly amateur comedy, and also thank you all again for supporting me and giving me the advice that I could use while abroad. This may be the end of the Germany study abroad adventure, but by no means is it the end of the adventure I've been on my whole life.



"Every end is a new beginning"   

Sechs Tage und dann nach Hause

Hello everyone!! This quite possibly could be my last post on this blog, BUT I hopefully want to squeeze one more in before I come home. It is exactly 6 days that I will be in what seems like very hot wisconsin and hopefully I will overcome the jet lag when I am back. I'm not gonna lie to my lovely readers and I'm gonna go out and say that I cant wait to come home. Now don't get me wrong Germany will always have a place in my heart and so will everyone that I have gotten so close to here, but I miss my home. I have one final travel that I start actually on sunday BUT the cheapest way to get there is to catch a train from here to seigen which isnt that far away around 11pm. Stay over night in the train station till the first train in the morning to Dusseldorf and then from Dusseldorf we take a shuttle to a smaller airport to take our plane to Budapest. Truthfully I don't know a whole lot about Budapest, but if anything going in with no expectations isnt a bad thing. But what is a more of a sore subject is tonight will be my last official night in Marburg and its so surreal. I have the same feeling about it that I did before I came to Germany. I hear the words and think about it, but I think the realization is a little delayed. And I'm making sure I take tons of random pictures around Marburg so that I can always go back and just look around Marburg and reminisce. And I gotta tell you I am terrible with goodbyes. I want to make them memorable and have a nice goodbye and all but it's hard to try and say it all. But in the end they will all be great goodbyes and if anything I like to consider them not goodbyes but instead I will see you soon's. And I gotta say I think there is going to be more of a culture shock coming back home then there was coming here. It'll be just different to see english everywhere that I understand after coming from a country that I only understand only some of the things i read and hear. Now I'm not saying that I'm gonna run through the streets screaming because of all the stress of being able to understand everything, but I think it will just catch me off guard a lot. Now the cliche phrase that I'll utter is that this whole experience was life changing but just because its cliche doesnt mean its not true. These 117 days have shown me not only so much about the world around me and the people in it, but also the world inside of me and the potential that I have. I found out more of the things i want to do with my life and the sort of places I want to take it. I left not knowing what I would find out and what would happen, but coming back I can say that I've found out so much about myself and so this experience has changed the course of my life, but in such a good way. Now 6 days away from home I am content and in more ways then none I've said my goodbyes to Germany, one of those was by running 6.37 miles from my dormitory to marburg and then back today. The longest run I've gone on since I've been here and it felt so great completing it. 6 days and I will be back with all of you and I am just again so thankful to have all of you supporting me before i left and even now by reading about all my adventures and amateur comedy. I love you all so much and am so fortunate to have you in my life. See you all next week!

  "Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived." - Jean Luc Picard

Winding Down but the Engine's Still Runnin'

Hello everyone! Just got back to my room after seeing my wonderful mother off at the airport. I was really sad to see her go and it hit me more on the train ride home that it did in the airport watching her go past the security gates and looking around for English directions on the walls and signs. And thinking about her leaving has got, of course, me thinking about how three weeks from tomorrow I'll be carrying all my heavy stuff this time and it'll be my turn to stand in line for hours to get my boarding passes. But I try not to dwell on it to much. I got a pretty relaxed weekend ahead and then next weekend is Hamburg and then the last weekend I have my last trip which will be to Budapest. Some might think 21 days is alot, but considering how long ive been here and how much time has already sped by 21 days seems like half a week left. But I told my mom today how I really do miss home, and how I love Germany and never will forget my time here, but I think there's a time and a place for everything, and I gotta say having so little time before I do go home, I'm getting anxious and eager. And of course with the little time we have left Germany is finally starting to warm up after what seemed like a decade of a mini ice age. School is also winding down cause after tomorrow I have only 2 more class meetings and then schools out! Now I know most of you must be asking yourself "Neal, what sort of exams or finals do you have to deal with over here in Germany" and that's a very simple question. Now what im about to say may cause a bit of jealous rage in maybe more of the student population of my readers, but as for my finals I merely have to write a 2 page, single space, paper on a certain product in a reading and how it contributes to globalization AND for my other final I only need to read the three readings we wont be here for and meet with the professor for a small oral exam. Ill pause to let that sink in..... so I gotta say one thing Germany hasn't given me is a lot of stress which is nice. But one things for sure is that Germany really has given me more than I could of possibly imagined. Just seeing it on my moms face when she first went to all the places we would go. Just the awe stricken, "Am I dreaming" face. I smile cause that was the exact same feeling I had when I got here. I would wake up in the morning and looking around forgetting that I'm not in my room at home and then having to remind myself more than once during the day that I was in fact in a different country and will be for quite awhile. Its weird thinking about the steps in the study abroad experience and thinking back to my first day here then my first month then second and now today it being 3 months and 1 day exactly since I left Wisconsin for this journey. It really is one of those milestones that are such a huge part of your life, but you don't realize the scale of it until its almost over. Sure 3 months ago I knew I was on a plane to Germany, but that wasn't even scratching the surface of the surface. The saying its only the tip of the ice burg doesn't really suffice. Its more like me being on the plane was only a snowflake on top of the ice burg. Even though im god awful at updating this thing, I'm really glad I got to be able to share all these moments with all of my readers, and also a good way for me to document so that I can go back in later years and read about these moments and these memories. But something like this, the fact that I never thought I'd be here, kind of keeps me on my toes because who knows what kind of other surprises are ahead of me. Who knows if ill be somewhere else or having some other experience that half way through or towards the end of it realizing this again is one of those milestones. I thank God to be able to have my mom out to visit me even though 13 days with her seemed like it was 13 hours and we both felt it. And now that she, as I type this, is on her way home, I hope that she had as much fun as I did with her and seeing all that I had to show in Germany. It may not be over, but already I know it will always be something I look back on and will always be a defining moment in my life, just when you think you know everything about yourself you turn the page and realize just how wrong you are and how there is so much more to learn.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. - Henry Ford

Gettin' down in Dresden

So I don't think I even have to say how terrible I am at updating this blog thing cause I'm sure you all already have noticed haha BUT fear not. I have plenty of stories to put out all in one sitting (lets hope) so more reading for you hungry readers you. Hungry Readers. Now way back in April the 28th to be exact, the IUSP group and I headed out on our 2 of 3 trips we take while we here and this time it was to Dresden. Along with this great trip we were also accompanied by some great weather! So great in fact that when we got to our pitstop on our bus ride to Dresden I stepped off the bus into the sun and actually immediately felt my skin burning #irishproblems. Now one might think that that doesnt sound like the greatest weather BUT when you've been living in one third cold, one third rain, and one third cloudy weather for 2 months at this point the sun slowly damaging the outer layer of my skin was a Godsend. I almost shed a tear because of how happy I was, but it evaporated immediately exiting my eye. So after basking in the sun for a bit we all piled on to the bus and this is where things get sticky. Sticky, sweaty, smelly, and hot to be more accurate. Now i'm not saying the first half our trip wasn't it was just that after having the bus doors open to the elements and 50 or so already sun baked kids piled on to the bus things got a little hectic. The air conditioning trickled out of the vents like honey out of a refrigerated bottle and the only sort of cold relief i could get was when i simply put up my hand to the vent. But luckly I was to enveloped in my book really to notice. Now upon arrival we all, very quickly, stormed out of the bus and the organizer herded us all like lost american sheep to the front of the hostel and started getting groups together for rooms. Once my friends and I dropped off all of our essentials we grabbed the Frisbee, beers, and sunglasses and headed down to the river to enjoy such nice weather. Some people went out to venture into the old town right away which is normally what I do, but i thought heck we got a bus and walking tour all day tomorrow so i figured id indulge this time. Then we got back later in the day, had some dinner, and headed right back to the river but this time to just a quaint beer garden where we just all ordered a couple liters of beer, and relaxed in  chairs overlooking the river and the old town that as night approached was illuminated by lights pointed at the historical buildings. It was like I was in a romance movie or something. And after a nice night of relaxing in the nice cool breeze with some nice cool brews we all headed back to rest of for the next day. The bus tour started a little early for my liking and because of that i unfortunately passed out for the majority of the bus tour, I know I'm terrible for doing that, but hey a man needs his sleep haha. But I havent mastered sleeping and walking yet so for the walking part of the tour I was wide awake and absorbed information like a Sham-wow. From the city tour we took the bus to the Sandstone mountains and saw the most breath taking views i've ever seen. Took some bridges over deep trenches and did a little free climbing around the sand stones to take some pretty gnarly pictures. Then from there we headed to this fortress that has been around for centuries, but I believe the Nazi army used both to keep supplies and POW during the war. The walls were enormously tall so I figured if there's any place to hide out its here. Walked a little here, snapped a couple pictures there, and ate like 5 euros worth of ice cream which was very relieving if I do say so myself. And after a 7 hour day excursion we all piled back on the "sweat racer" and rode all the way back to Dresden just in time to scarf down some grub and head back down to the river for some more brew. Now one of my friends knew a german living in Dresden and said that she knew of this huge dance concert party thing going on that night and he had convinced us all that it wasnt that far. Had I known how far we walked and that we turned around before even getting there I would've stayed put, but as the young'ns say these days YOLO. And so we all just hung around the river again, but at this point I just wanted a nice bed so I stuck it out for as long as i could, and then headed back to the hostel and was out faster than you could say Schmetterlinge. Then just copy and paste the trip TO Dresden and cause it was just as hot, and sweaty, and filled with cranky smelly people, except this time for some reason I smelled myself half way through the trip and I seriously smelled like cheese. Everyone thought I was "overreacting" about smelling like cheese, like i really need to overreact about cheese stench, and everyone just blamed it on me being from Wisconsin, but I took that as a compliment. Then after I got home within the first 5 min of being in my room I had to jump on the bus to go pick up my friend from back home who was abroad in England since January and finished in April and has been travelling around and decided I was one of his stops, we both went to Munich for the weekend, but thats for the next post :) Till next time!

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they must be felt with the heart" Helen Keller

Wisconsin- Hessen Trip

This past weekend the new students from Wisconsin and Massachusetts (took me awhile to find out how to spell that) were cordially invited to a all expenses paid trip to a quaint city on the Rhein River. Now you're probably asking what that city was called and I it pains me to say that I literally have no idea where I was I just know that there was a city near it called Ponyland and that I had a lot of fun.....sort of. Now I checked the weather prior to leaving and it said a nice balmy 54 degrees and I'm like alright I'm feeling nice athletic pants and a sweatshirt will be just enough for today's events...boy was I wrong, so very wrong. We had to take a train to Geissen to meet with the two organizers of the whole trip and while we were walking it was slightly raining and not slightly gusting. Oh and a little insight in my health at this point is that I had a cold, and acute bronchitis, and I had also hurt my ankle playing basketball the day before so you can guess how i felt about being pushed around by wind while I couldnt breath out of my nose, while simultaneously coughing up a lung haha. Now dont get me wrong I survived just fine and the trip was great, so dont think that it was a bad trip. But I digress. So here were only 14 people on the trip. We had 5 people from Wisconsin who are in Marburg along with 2 people from Massachusetts that also go to Marburg. We had 3 people from Kassel, one being a Senior who goes to Whitewater, who I only know a little bit, but it was nice to see a face from home, and we also had 2 people from Queensland, Australia who also have a Hessen- Queensland exchange. Now to the trip, we started by piling in a van and driving about an hour and a half to our destination on which I peacefully passed out on my backpack and woke up when we got there. Then we got on a sky lift up the mountain which was I'd like to say delightful, but there again was even more hurricane force winds while on this lift, and my face was being pelted with high velocity rain drops. Once at the top it was alot better because it stopped raining and since we were in a pretty dense forest there wasn't any wind. We walked to all of the sightseeing spots on the trail and took great pictures, but pictures really couldnt capture just how majestic not only the Rhein is, but also the town around it and the massive mountains surrounding it. While we were walking we came across a rain deer farm and we got some of them to come over with the russelling of bags full of food. Then we took a sky lift down, which was much much better cause the sun was out and there wasnt any wind or rain. When at the bottom we got on this huge boat that took us up river to where we started. And the boat was like a smaller luxury cruise/ touring boat that tourists go down the Rhein in and stop at different destinations on the Rhein. And a little taste of home that I saw was this little old man that was all Green Bay Packered up! He had the championship hat one and had a big Packer letter jacket on which a big green and gold G on the back of it, so I went up to him and asked where he was from and we talked for a bit, which was really nice. Then we had an hour before we left to do some shopping which at this point I just wanted somewhere to sit and rest, because i was pretty spent, and to make it better was it started to rain almost as soon as we started so we just took shelter in one of the many weird souvenir shops they had there. I guess its a big tourist town cause the amount of stores and the amount of very just simply odd things they sold were peculiarly odd. Then finally we all got back on the van and drove back to Geissen where we just caught a train going to Marburg so we didnt have to wait, and I took a very healthy nap the whole way home. Oh also if you've been following at home 3 days ago marked the 2 month mark since I've been here which is just simply amazing to thinking about how long I've been here and now how I only have 7 weeks left till I come home. Classes are going great and this weekend we are taking another group trip, but this time were going to Dresden which I cant wait for. The weekend after that I'm going to Munich to visit a friend who's from Wisconsin. The weekend after that my mom finally gets here!!! I hopefully plan on taking her to both Berlin and Munich so lets hope all those plans become reality with as little stressful planning as possible. She's here for 2 weeks until the 23rd then the weekend after that I have nothing planned, but hopefully fill that with either a trip to Amsterdam or maybe even a trip to London. Then the weekend after that we have the last group trip to Hamburg the first weekend of June and then after that will be our very last week of school and of the program, but I leave the next week, so I hope to take one last trip with from friends to Budapest, so after thinking about all that, it really seems like time is just gonna fly by. I hope everything is going great back at home with all of you. For everyone in school I hope your semester is coming to a peaceful close and that the summer heat is waiting for all of you when you get home. Till next time!

"Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to face the day and put one foot in front of the other. Take heart, for even hard times have an end."

Bodacious Berlin!

Meine Damen und Herren! I hope everyone had a happy and chocolate filled easter this season. Also I hope your easter was alot warmer than mine was, because believe it or not here in the wonderful world of Germany it was much colder for easter than it was for Christmas!!! How Neat is That!!! But before any of that happened we all had to bunch together in a big coach bus and take the long 7 hour hall to berlin which actually didn't seem like that long. Mostly because I was knitting, reading, sleeping, and zoning outside the whole time. Now at this point a lot of you I'm sure are going, "What on earth could Neal be knitting this time?" and to answer your question I decided that since my language teacher that we've had for the past six weeks was such an amazing teacher, and I couldnt thank her enough with words I figured I wanted to thank her instead by knitting her a pink scarf that she can have even after I'm gone. But I digress, Once we got there we all piled out and got to our hostel pleasantly named The Three Little Pigs Hostel. We wasted no time dropping off our stuff and began just hiking all around Berlin and saw all the major and world renown statues, and buildings, and landmarks all around Berlin. If i were to guess a mileage I'd have to say that we walked around 5 miles just that one day. And the problem was that the day before either my camera or my battery for my camera decided it didn't want to work anymore, but luckily I just used my IPod to take all 294 pictures of all of Berlin. The second day was bitterly cold around 40 degrees and luckily for the first half of the day we had a bus tour, but for the second half it was all walking which wasnt so much fun. And on this said bus tour our tour guide explained that Berlin was the sunniest city in Germany and as he is saying this it was snowing outside with no a crack of sunshine poking through the crowds. And so for the second part of our tour as we walked around Berlin basically we all huddled together like this. Then on the last full day there we were going to take a 9 hour excursion through the Berlin forests and what have you, but since it was so bitterly cold, they had the heart just to let us go to whatever museum we choose and bring back the ticket as proof that we went. But the other obstacle with that was that Berlin has around 170 museums ranging from History of course all the way to abstract art, and every decade in between. The other option was to go to some of the surrounding flea markets around Berlin, and being that it was a better than expected day out, and wasnt in the mood for museum searching, they  got a good group together and we took trains around the city going to various flea markets which turned out to be really interesting. I did'nt buy anything, but some of the stuff they were selling was very bizarre, and some very questionable. After that we all came back and crashed for a couple hours with a nice mid day nap because the night ahead of us was pretty eventful. For the night life, we walked around a lot of Berlin going in and out of bars and ended up posting up in a bar that had a tab in the middle of the table and everyone would just pick a number on the screen above it, and take as much as they wanted and when someone else wanted to fill up they would click their number and it would monitor how much that person poured. After a long, fun filled night we all made it back home safely to our beds, and in the morning we all hopped on the bus for our journey back home that was much worse than the trip there. I had finished my knitting so all I had left to do was read and sleep, which both were impossible because of all the yelling and seat kicking that happend on the entire ride home. Luckily instead of dropping us all in town and having to take buses back to our places, they drove us all to our dorms. Ours being the first was the best, because after 7 hours on a loud, hot, and smelly bus, I just wanted to crash in my room and just sleep off the rest of the day. Plus our first day of classes started the next day, so I ended up calling it an early night so that I would be dozing off in class. I actually really love my classes too. I have one called Globalizing Capitalism, which is mostly filled with discussion about what our views on globalization, is and if its achievable or not. It's just a lot of brain storming and idea forming which I love to do so I wasnt bored at all in the classroom. And for my second class its called Intercultural Competance, where it's also mainly coming up with definitions of what culture is, and how does one define it, and what goes hand in hand with culture. But just yesterday I was thinking to myself I got my first round of classes left and thought about how I only have 8 more weeks and 8 more classes until I'm back home, which was a bit of a surprise, mostly because when I think of the first day of classes I am used to thinking I have a whole semester ahead of me, but I guess not. But thats all the news for today folks I hope summer is staying more prevalent instead of sporadic warm and cold days like we are having here. Bis spater!

"Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power."

Henry George

Week Full of Reisen

Hello everyone! Let me just say this week is only half way over and I've travelled more in these past three days then I have in my life! It all started out with this weekend. We had originally planned on going to Heidelburg on Saturday and then Frankfurt on sunday, but because of some complications we weren't able to go to Heidelburg. But it was just a sunday morning and I had figured we wouldnt go to Frankfurt, but then my Ukrainian friend up and said hey lets go to Frankfurt for the day, so I called up a couple more people and we caught the train to Frankfurt for free since we have student passes that allows us to travel on any public transportation in the state of Hessen for free. We didnt stay long, but it was such an amazing city! It is the main hub for alot of the Banks not only in Germany but some in the EU as well. It's the only city with a skyline filled with skyscrapers and looked alot like a smaller version of Chicago. After about a 3 hour walk around the city, we hopped back on the train for home, but little did I know that there was more travelling this week then I had thought. Now Monday came around, and when we got to class our teacher had suggested that we learn today's lesson, and then we will go out for breakfast which I was beyond excited about! While we were eating someone had suggested that they really wanted to see the teachers home town which is a little village right outside the city of Bonn and she agreed that that would be alot of fun, and then one of us goes "So lets do it!" and we all slowly agreed we should and she asks when and we all go "Tomorrow!" and she was besides herself trying to contemplate this potential trip, but after a couple emails and some green lights she rented two cars for all 10 of us to pack into and we were Bonn bound the next day. The city of Bonn is such a beautiful city and if i were to ever live in Germany in my upcoming years, I would like to live in Bonn. It's big but not to big and it also has literally 8 or 9 cities not 60 min away from it. Cologne is probably only a 30 min train ride away. She took us first to a German Geschichte (History) Museum which was very interesting, but more than half of the plaques with information were in german. I could understand some of what it was saying, but there were plenty to just see and understand instead of read. After the museum she took us downtown which is the most beautiful Innenstadt i've seen in Germany, and since it was about lunch time by then we of course went to get some Brats and Brotchen! But just before I was satisfied with just a Brat she took us to a frozen yogurt place where you pour your own frozen yogurt, and then they have tons of toppings to put on it. I ended up getting a layer of vanilla, a layer of double chocolate, strawberries on top, and chocolate chips. (Picture on Facebook) It was mind melting or should i say...freezing.. and i know what youre all saying after that clever turn in this blog. Something like this? Then after our inner city excursion she took us all the way to her hometown to her house to meet her family which when we got there we normally are a very talkative bunch, but when we got there none of us really talked that much, but after some pieces of cake that her mom made, and some introductions, we all headed out to a local restaurant where we filled up one last time and headed home. Now today was our last language class day, and also we will be getting our next schedule of classes for the next 9 weeks I'm in school, which I am going to right now so I hope all of you have a splendid Morning and afternoon, and I will be going to Berlin for 4 days this weekend so you can bet there will be stories and pictures coming in the near future!

"If I try my best and fail, well, I've tried my best" Steve Jobs